2014: Competing visions of India

The BJP v/s Congress battle in 2014 is not only about who will run the country but about where the country has reached today and what drives its voters. The difference in not merely in strategy but in the reading of how much India has changed and an understanding of how elections work in this country.

The BJP is betting on an India that has changed dramatically. It is projecting a single leader, on the basis of his track record as a three-time incumbent well ahead of the elections. Narendra Modi is a state CM who has managed to rise above the endless politicking within the party to emerge as an authoritative leader, no mean feat in a party that is deeply suspicious of the cult of the individual. Modi’s promise stands on two pillars, one explicit and the other unstated but palpable to his supporters. The overt promise is of decisive governance with a focus on the kind of development that the middle class understands and craves for. The emotional subtext is important for in his decisiveness and strength, he offers a powerful counterpoint to the current regime that speaks in elliptical silences. The covert promise is of giving to the majority community the advantages of being one. In the eyes of his supporters he has brought Gujarat back to what they see as the natural order, where the majority community calls the shots but the minority community is assigned a place; things are fine as long as that implicit hierarchy is understood and followed.

The BJP’s strategy is about concentrating resources on a few fronts, intensifying the aura around an individual and hoping to cross the line with one big push. The presidential nature of his campaign has been widely commented upon, and noticeable as this approach makes him on media, it is a hugely risky bet to take. It is an all-or-nothing strategy that needs a wave of some kind that will put it in the 180+ seat mark that will allow it some leeway in attracting potential allies. The problem is that going by current poll surveys and past history, this looks unlikely. Which is why the BJP needs to augment its leadership and governance story with a return to the Hindutva plank. Given that Modi himself has built his brand on these two pillars, the strategy is not an unfamiliar one. The difference is that unlike in Gujarat after 2002, Modi needed to do little visibly to bolster his Hindutva credentials- the odd swipe at Mian Musharraf and the symbolic refusal of a skull cap was enough for his supporters to know where he stood, elsewhere it will take much more than symbolic gestures for deep polarisation to take place. Pursuing this goal would mean a doubling down of the risk of isolation, something that the party seems prepared for, but which undercuts the overt promise of Brand Modi. The BJP needs the extra heft to its appeal that Hindutva might potentially provide but this might push it too far right of its new found middle class constituency, and dull the shininess of the glittering technocratic vision that Modi is espousing. The Hindutva plank is a messy one, as it muddies the Modi pitch and speaks to an older India that the BJP ostensibly wants to leave behind.

On the other hand, the Congress is betting that all the noise apart, little has changed in the country on the ground. It is betting against the middle class and what it sees as an inflated sense of self-importance. It is depending on the complexity of electoral politics in India to deliver another term, although it is clear that even in the best case, outright victory is not on the table. Which is why the Congress eschews clarity and specificity- it does not acknowledge its lack of success in its current term or offer a blueprint for change in the future nor do we know who will lead it if it comes to power. It seeks to sneak in an extra term by hoping to eke out the numbers from within the clammy grasp of a fragmented polity.

In its mind, electorally India still responds to the idea the state-as-benefactor which hands out some benefits from time to time. A highly leaky pipeline notwithstanding, the attempt is to put as much in the hands of the electorate as possible through a slew of family-branded schemes. This regime has taken the traditional welfarist notion a step forward by imagining government schemes not as discretionary sops but as rightful entitlements. It has also experimented with ways of bypassing the middlemen and reaching the beneficiary directly, attempts that met with limited success so far. The Congress believes that Electorate India and Market India are still fundamentally different worlds with little overlap and that the former still lives by the rules it has always lived by.

Has India changed all that much? Does aspiration drive more people today than the guarantee of subsistence or is that an illusion fostered by a few? Are people really interested in mechanisms of governance, or simply its disembodied fruits? Is identity, be it based on caste or religion as important as a factor as the political parties imagine it to be? Does India need a strong centralising leadership or one that accommodates its loose diversity? Has media succeeded in providing all of India with a common framework of grievances and has it broadcast dissatisfaction as widely as it imagines? The 2014 elections are not only about choosing who will govern India, it is likely to be a sort of referendum on where the country has reached and what drives it.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Santosh Desai is a leading ad professional. He says he has strayed into writing entirely by accident, and for this he is "grateful". "City City Bang Bang" looks at contemporary Indian society from an everyday vantage point. It covers issues big and small, tends where possible to avoid judgmental positions, and tries instead to understand what makes things the way they are. The desire to look at things with innocent doubt helps in the emergence of fresh perspectives and hopefully, of clarity of a new kind.

Santosh Desai is a leading ad professional. He says he has strayed into writing entirely by accident, and for this he is "grateful". "City City Bang Bang" l. . .